Power attracts people who love power
"The other part of the problem is that many times the WRONG people have been promoted to powerful positions within a company."
Many people who want to get ahead are just in it for the power and the money, not because they want to push their organizations to new heights of productivity and creativity and not because they are great performers. They are motivated solely by self interest. Therefore, on the way up, they learn to flatter the right people, polish the right apples, and schmooze their way to the top. Once they get there, they make the right friends, attend the right parties, and join the right country clubs. Then, even if they screw up, the CEOs are reluctant to let them go because they are buddies, and no one wants to lay off his buddy. Upper management is impressed by the latest sparkly thing, program, or buzzword that is going to save the world, and many times, they make decisions solely on the basis of the hottest technology -- not the technology that is a good fit for the application. Then the manager retires, rolling in money, leaving the plebes to struggle with the problems brought about by the manager's poor decisions. Of course, after much money has been thrown at the development of an application built upon the wrong technology, upper management is reluctant to throw in the towel and admit that a mistake was made. The plebes who manage the tool are the ones who have to live with it. How can anyone be enthusiastic when they are forced to live with the mistakes of their "superiors", and forced to be the "fall guy" when the tool fails to meet the expectations of the organization?
